I’m sorry, this is a little off topic but I just wanted to share. I just stumbled on the following link and I’ve been laughing so hard my sides hurt reading the comments about a new video game called “Faith fight.”

Per lots of religious mystics, Randomfactor is absolutely right. Since all things were created by god, god is “no thing,” i.e. god is equivalent to no created thing. God’s “being” is absolute, whereas the “being” of created things is contingent on that absolute being. (Insert your favorite made-up neoplatonic theory of emanations or whatever to get from one to the other.) So when a sensible person says “god does not exist” the mystefier can stroke his long white beard meaningfully and say, “Indeed, god does not exist in the sense that you or I exist…he’s realer. So there. Nya-nya-nya.”

Good way to have your cake of fancy while eating the cake of reality too.

PZ, I really am hoping that you win this iPod. Check out episode #2. Kind of wondering what you think. I am sure that this episode will bring to mind all kinds of colorful words that will make us all laugh and smile!

As much as those folks lie, I can’t think they’ll come through with the ‘pod for PZ, but I’ll always have the picture in my mind of Hovind’s face as he sees the results of his little competition. Priceless.

Horseshit. I do this most every morning around three-thirty, four AM. Major REM period and, oh! the dreams!

My mother told me that every now and then my dreams could come true and she wouldn’t lie to me. Why, there must be jillions of poor saps living in universes that I’ve dreamed. Universes that I made, not anyone else!

They were all real, I tell you. I could even smell them (just then the room begins to lighten . . .).

I’d love to help you out but can’t resist slamming my head into my desk every time I click on that site. Worse, the pain medication isn’t working like it used to. For the sake of my health, I’m going to have to resist your link.

I gotta give props to Eric Hovind. He’s got a nice Mr. Wizard type thing going on. He isn’t talking about the government watching you through your TV sets, he isn’t talking about the devil flying spaceships, and he has nicely produced videos. I would consider him 10x the threat to science that his father was. Most people only recognize Kent Hovind as the pink jacket guy on your local Christian channel…Eric Hovind’s videos could be corrupting tens or even hundreds of thousands of minds in evangelical schools around the country. If I was a first grader those videos would make sense to me.

“A record number of atheists have been coming to this site, which proves that they are hungry to hear the truth. Because, you see, even atheists admit that evolution is a theory full of holes, and they are itching to hear what God has to say to them. This means that our ministry is succeeding… and that our message is being proclaimed to the unbelievers! It’s just more proof that God is there, and that he answers prayers.”

…which seems to fit the ‘something cannot come from nothing’ argument.
If god is something, then it is empirically falsifiable. And if it is something, it must come from somewhere and designed by something else, since ‘something cannot come from nothing’.

No, you need to add the –referer option to the curl command or PZ won’t get any credit. You also need to enclose the target URL in single or double quotes, otherwise the ampersands in it will confuse the hell out of the shell executing the command.

If I click on the link, I do feel that I ought to watch the video, so PZ gets the IPod fair and square — or loses it by skullduggery. If nothing else, it helps me understand their misconceptions. This video is another gem.

Aside from the fact that the Big Bang is not ‘evolution’ (yes, a petty little detail, I know), cosmologists do not believe — or say — that the universe came from “nothing.” From what I understand, they either say that there was nothing that the universe “came from,” invoke a mega-cycling universe, or argue that the concept of ‘absolute nothing” is incoherent, and that a symmetrical, unstable, zero-energy state at the origin of our space-time would be empty of objects, but not “nothing.”

And any one of these ideas makes more intuitive sense than a living, conscious, disembodied Person existing in no environment, shaped by no history, for no reasons. Sticking a Mind in at the beginning of everything is every bit as problematic as sticking a 40-piece orchestra in at the beginning of everything — before there was time or space, of course. Well, it would have to be a very different kind of orchestra than the ones we’re familiar with, wouldn’t it? Just like God must be a very different kind of person than the ones we’re familiar with. Disembodied, and outside of space/time, and not formed to fit environment.

@Sastra, You got it! You are seeing it clear as day! Both views are religious aren’t they. You can “Believe” that God did it, or you can “Believe” that it has always existed, or you can “Believe” that absolute nothing is incoherent, but that is the point! You have to “believe it”.

Of course your right when you say that “the big bang is not part of ‘evolution'” technically speaking, but now we have to define exactly what evolution is! Wait till Episode #4.

Both views are religious aren’t they. You can “Believe” that God did it, or you can “Believe” that it has always existed, or you can “Believe” that absolute nothing is incoherent, but that is the point! You have to “believe it”.

Is your belief in god provisional? If not, then you’re conflating two distinct ideas under “belief.” Beliefs based on scientific evidence are held provisionally. They can change given new evidence. Not so with religious beliefs.

now we have to define exactly what evolution is! Wait till Episode #4.

Oh, YOU get to define what evolution is? How about you start by reading a book or two about what evolution is? Since the front page of your website tells us that evolution = nothing + time we already know that you have a bit of a problem providing an honest definition of evolution.

After PZ so graciously linked to my blog entry on the ICR-THECB lawsuit, we flooded the ICR with hits to their website, including their insane press release (written by the same guy who authored their laughable complaint).

I think this Hovind’s Ipod for PZ campaign is in all honesty quite pathetic. It is good for laughs and shit and nothing more. To save this from being all negative, at least I can say I find Hovind’s stupidity quite amusing and easy to shoot down.

I think you are missing the point. It’s stupid, silly and that’s what makes it funny. It’s like a great office gag. Besides, can you imagine how annoyed Hovind would be if PZ wins the ipod?

I will admit that I’m immature enough to love office pranks and gags. The more the merrier and the bigger the better. The bigger the target the more enjoyable. You should ask my boss about the annoyatron in his printer for 2 weeks.

Set up Firefox with a little iOpus macro that goes to the site each day, and then gets the hell out before I have to look at any of the drivel.

Hope it’s working – though confidence is low that the buggers will cough up.

I think we need a bit of research done on exactly what will count, and what won’t. The site suggested that only ‘unique’ links would be counted. Does that definitely mean that one IP * 1 day = 1 count?

Clicked again. Hope ya win! And I hope it fucking kills Hovind to have to send you something. I wouldn’t be surprised if he goes back on his word, though. You are after all, a dirty evolutionist/atheist, which of course, makes you subhuman.

Hmmm. If the loonies give the iPod full of videos to PZ, are they in any legal sense giving him the videos, and any rights to the videos? I mean, if he chops up the content, neatly refutes or relentlessly mocks every bit of video, and posts it all onto YouTube, can they squawk about copyright violation?

Eric Hovind is definitely his father’s son. The evil is strong in them.

I had to laugh at the bit about evolutionists being “forced to believe”. The Hovinds haven’t a clue about reality, but they are good at manipulating those who trust them.

As I’ve said elsewhere on this blog, there is still mostly nothing. On an astronomical scale, the universe is practically only empty space–Eric should have noticed that while gathering up his astronomy factoids. On an microscopic scale, each atom is empty of all but a few flecks.

@Sastra, You got it! You are seeing it clear as day! Both views are religious aren’t they. You can “Believe” that God did it, or you can “Believe” that it has always existed, or you can “Believe” that absolute nothing is incoherent, but that is the point! You have to “believe it”.

No, both views are not “religious,” because the scientists are not relying on their “intuitions” and holding their views as faith. There are several rigorously formed competing theories which make predictions, and which are, at least in theory, capable of being falsified. Their “belief” is provisional, and therefore not similar to religious faith. Early cosmology is also an area where our ordinary, everyday “intuitions” are not going to be reliable.

Theories on the Big Bang are not scientific because they discuss origins: they are scientific because of the way they discuss origins.

If you want to bring God into science as an explanation which stands up against other, science-based explanations, you’re going to have to formulate it in a way which makes predictions — and then do the experiments. If, on the other hand, it is all for you a matter of “belief” — with no work involved — then don’t stand it up, head to head, against scientific theories. You will lose.

Of course your right when you say that “the big bang is not part of ‘evolution'” technically speaking, but now we have to define exactly what evolution is! Wait till Episode #4.

Since these are supposed to be science videos aimed at children (at least, this is what it looks like), you ought to be much more careful about these “technical” details — like using terms properly. If you misuse the term when it is introduced, you’re going to have to go out of your way to fix it, and it’s unlikely to stick as well as the first one.

“Of course your right when you say that “the big bang is not part of ‘evolution'” technically speaking,”

No you silly sod ‘not…technically speaking’ just not.

The actual theory of evolution by natural selection (and a few extra more recent bits) is very much,

Something + time = evolution.

As long as the something is replicating (but not perfectly) and shows heritability.

You seem to be going down the Ray Comfort line with you nothing idea. Just like him it makes you seem dishonest because it is a poor reflection of what is actually theorised about the origins of the universe.

So how about you break with family tradition, leave aside the strawmen and instead give us some evidence.

Much Ado About Nothing. I just spent some time trying to calculate the average amount of space in the universe occupied by sub-atomic particles. There’s less than one atom per cubic meter, over all, with hydrogen predominating, and a proton is only a bit of the volume of an atom … . I’m giving it up for now, but I’m ball-parking it: Much less than one-million-millionth of the volume of the universe is truly occupied. The place is pretty much empty nothingness, and the Hovinds aren’t adding a damn thing to it.

The Hovinds and their ilk tend to use the word “evolution” to include all modes, models and theories of Godless development, whether the origin of the universe, the origin of life or the origin of species. Their key meaning is Godless. Of course, if you back them into a corner, they shift their meaning and start whining.

This is the first day the video appeared for me. I’m not sure if the other clicks counted. Now that the video works, I have a worse problem. TEH STUPID! IT BURNS!!

Not satisfied with denying all of biology to pretend evolution doesn’t happen, they’re now going to refute all of cosmology.

PLEASE tell me we don’t have to watch the video every day. If so, count me out, sorry. I’ll sacrifice a lot for the cause, but I learned back when I was playing COC that there’s only so many times you can watch crazy before yo go crazy.

Both views are religious aren’t they. You can “Believe” that God did it, or you can “Believe” that it has always existed, or you can “Believe” that absolute nothing is incoherent, but that is the point! You have to “believe it”.

We can sometimes distinguish between ideas that are justified by evidence and ideas that aren’t. We can also admit that some things are unknown. If you believe without asking for evidence, what stops you accumulating incorrect beliefs?

By the way, I think you used a strawman argument in your video: you assumed that the universe “began” (presupposing a “time” outside of spacetime without any evidence) by an act of conscious creation (again without any evidence) and then ridiculed the idea of your assumed creation taking place without a creator. It didn’t seem to me to be a very effective argument.

It looks as though they have blocked clicks through from Pharyngula. I have tried a few times over the last few days, from two diffent computers, and each time the time taken to open the page drops to a snail’s pace before finally hanging with 1 item remaining to load.

One thing that does amaze me is how closed minded so many of these remarks are. i ALWAYS ask myself… “why do i believe what i believe.” I remember a man telling me he was an Atheist.. i said cool! How many years did you study the Bible and other religeous documents before forming “YOUR” thesis? to my amazment he said he had NEVEr read anything so foolish, now would he? Imagine if that man needed a brain tumor removed but had NEVER heard that REAL DOCTORS can do that surgery with great success… the whole DR thing comes thru KNOWLEDGE. So as so many of you bias AGAINST these videos, is it because YOU have done your homework and have YOUR opinion??? or because you once new a man who made you mad and he was a religeous guy??? so now your mad at God? do ANY of you actually research before you blog??? oj just spew hatred about a topic for which you have ZERO insight from personal study?

One thing that does amaze me is how closed minded so many of these remarks are. i ALWAYS ask myself… “why do i believe what i believe.” I remember a man telling me he was an Atheist.. i said cool! How many years did you study the Bible and other religeous documents before forming “YOUR” thesis? to my amazment he said he had NEVEr read anything so foolish, now would he? Imagine if that man needed a brain tumor removed but had NEVER heard that REAL DOCTORS can do that surgery with great success… the whole DR thing comes thru KNOWLEDGE. So as so many of you bias AGAINST these videos, is it because YOU have done your homework and have YOUR opinion??? or because you once new a man who made you mad and he was a religeous guy??? so now your mad at God? do ANY of you actually research before you blog??? oj just spew hatred about a topic for which you have ZERO insight from personal study?

Easily one of the dumbest comments today, and you have some serious competition.

I’m willing to bet that a large portion of the people you are referring to know the bible better than many fo the Christians you know.

I have to ask, before forming this opinion of people here did you read through all the comment threads to see where we have discussed how any why we hold our personal opinions? Or are you just making assumptions like the ones you are accusing us of?

And seriously. What is with all the random capitalization? If you had read enough of the comments here you’d surely know that is a sign of a raging wingnut.

Tell me what books on Buddhism and Islam and atheism and Native America shamanism have you read? How long have you studied every other world religion before you came to your belief?

Well, no, not really, since there’s no such thing, no point getting mad at a non-existant entity.
What a waste of ‘getting mad’ that would be.
I’m going to use mine on people who never bothered to learn how apostrophes work.